Possible Suspensory Ligament or lumpy pony??!

[bobz1305]

Hi,
My pony had been off work for 5 weeks due to a kick on her hind leg in the field. I put her back into work and haven't done too much with her as I wanted to make sure the leg was ok. Over the last couple of days I have noticed she has been going short on her front legs...cant establish if she is really lame or not though. I have also noticed some small hard lumps on the inside of her leg and the vet has suggested it could be a suspensory ligament. I have noticed there are a few people on this site with experience of this so Im hoping for some advice? Has anyone that has had a horse noticed these small lumps before diagnosis or could it be something totally different. Is there anything else I should look out for? She is 19 now and although I have had loads of fun on her I would consider early retirement as I have had so many problems (too many to name!!). Someone give me some reassurance??!!!

 

[AmyMay]

Did the vet come out and examine her?

 

[bobz1305]

Not as yet, hoping to get her looked at by the end of the week. Just really wanted to know if anyone had come across these bumps before as they are really odd and almost 'pop' when you run your fingers over them. Think I am trying to be optimistic and hope someone tells me their horses legs do the same and its nothing to worry about!

 

[Skhosu]

I think you may be referring to normal everyday legs, not sure, are they hard?

 

[ecrozier]

THere is a vein about halfway down the inside of each leg - it moves slightly when you press it gently - if it is one 'lump' on each leg in the same location it could be that?
Suspensory ligament problems need scanning to identify how serious it is before giving a prognosis I believe? And also I *think* they are usually quite lame if it is a bad one - this was a very early, pre-xray/mri idea of what was wrong with OH's mare. It wasn't in the end though!

 

[rcm_73]

My mare currently has a suspensory ligament injury at the fetlock point. She started off as being intermittently lame and was wrongly diagnosed as having bone spavin. I was told to leave her out as with bone spavin it is best to keep the joint moving. However when the lameness got worse and she ended up severely lame and unable to bear weight on her heel at all, I called out a different vet and took her to his equine clinic where she was x-rayed and scanned and it turned out to be a huge gaping hole in the suspensory ligament which had more than likely suffered further damage through the initial recommendation of turnout when it should have been box rest. I would suggest that you get a good equine vet out in the first instance, unlike myself, who has ended up paying two different vets and one for a mis-diagnosis. She is currently about 6 weeks into 3 months box rest so is a long job, I would suggest bringing your horse in until the vet has been after the experience I've had.

 

[bobz1305]

Well turns out I had nothing to worry about!! Just being asilly mum! Turns out it was the vein that was 'popping' and she was just a bit stiff!!! Looks like she will keep going for a few years yet!!!
Thanks for your help though, as always appreciated!